Bethany Collins’ artwork is about language, specifically its potential to communicate or to completely fail to do so. In the Print Center’s engaging fall/winter group exhibition ‘Visual Record,’ Collins presents ‘America: A Hymnal,’ a book featuring one hundred songs set to the tune of ‘My Country Tis of Thee.’ Since the 18th century, new lyrics have been written for this song in support of such divergent causes as temperance, suffrage, abolition, and the Confederacy. In Collins’ book, printed lyrics run below notes that have been burnt away by laser cutting, demonstrating that the classic tune has itself become a battleground for various ideologies. (On view through Jan 21st).
